WindTide
WindTide was a research project to investigate the joint use of energy from wind and tidal currents in coastal waters. The project was carried out by the Development Center for Ship Technology and Transport Systems (DST) in Duisburg and the Institute for Foundation Engineering, Soil Mechanics, Rock Mechanics and Tunneling at the University of Duisburg-Essen (IGB) and by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology through the working group of industrial research associations "Otto von Guericke “ Funded.
background
In Germany, wind energy plays an important role, it has a rapidly growing share of total German electricity consumption , a share of 15% is planned by 2030. The offshore sector is currently being expanded, as the profitable sites of land-based wind energy use were largely built on with land-based systems. Therefore, the expansion of offshore wind energy is strongly promoted by the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). When setting up offshore wind turbines , it makes sense to aim for double use due to the high investment costs. This enables more effective energy generation because the tides are independent of the weather, i.e. H. electricity is generated even when there is no wind. Thus, in addition to reducing the specific investment costs of the system, the energy transmission infrastructure can also be better used. For this reason, planning tools for the design, construction and operation of offshore wind energy and water turbines were developed in the WindTide project to utilize the currents caused by the tides.
Combination of offshore wind energy systems with water turbines
Compared to wind turbines, water turbines for using tidal currents have the advantage of around 800 times the density of water compared to air. The disadvantage is the lower flow velocity, so only locations with high tidal flow velocities are suitable. The smaller cross-sectional area formed by the blades is disadvantageous, since offshore wind turbines are only installed in water depths of up to 60 meters.
Methods were developed to find suitable locations and to obtain reliable load assumptions, safe foundation dimensioning and an optimization of the structural design of such systems.
literature
- B. Friedhoff, R. Henn, T. Jiang, R. Kaiser, C. Thill, P. Hinz, K. Lesny, W. Richwien, R. Vilsmeier: Hydrodynamic and soil mechanical investigations of combined offshore wind energy and tidal flow systems ( PDF file )